Anatomical support structures such as bones and related anatomy are susceptible to a variety of weaknesses that can affect their ability to provide support and structure. Weaknesses in such structures may have many causes, including degenerative diseases, tumors, fractures, and dislocations. Advances in medicine and engineering have provided surgeons with a wide variety of devices and techniques for alleviating or curing these weaknesses, including implantable devices such as intramedullary rods, fusion rods and surgical plates and associated hardware to temporarily or permanently repair damaged support structures and/or fuse together various bones (i.e., spinal stabilization and/or fusion procedures). However, such rods and/or plates will often need to be bent or modified to accommodate the unique and/or unusual anatomy presented by an individual patient.
Instruments used for bending surgical implants are known in the art, including tools for bending round surgical rods and/or flat plates made of titanium or stainless steel. Often, such benders will resemble tubes, pliers or slotted tools, or may be similar to a device such as a French Bender, where a plier type instrument is used to bend the implant, with the handles of the tool providing leverage for orbital rollers to form the rod or other material shape around a central radius. In many cases, the bending operation is done by hand, which may be very difficult if the surgical implant comprises a new type and/or design of implant, such as newer alloys of stronger and stiffer implant materials. In many cases, the amount of force and/or leverage needed to bend these new materials is much higher, and surgeons are having difficulty forming the implant. Therefore, there is a need for a new device design which allows a surgeon to easily and accurately bend spinal rods and/or plates prior to insertion in to the patient's anatomy.